The present disclosure relates generally to information handling systems, and more particularly to the coordinated configuration of networked information handling systems.
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Information handling systems such as for example, networking devices, are sometimes deployed over geographically distant locations and rely on remote access to configure those networking device. For example, large numbers of switches are often deployed in different geographic locations to provide one or more networks for a business, and are typically configured using network management systems that remotely connect to and configure those switches via a management network. Such mass deployments of switches may include a variety of different networking topologies, with the switches providing a variety of different networking features, and typically require dedicated and knowledgeable on-site personnel at each geographic location in which the switches are deployed in order to remedy a variety of issues that arise during the complicated and tedious steps that are required to remotely configure a large number of switches in a network deployment using conventional methods.
For example, switches in a network are often provided configurations that are dependent on the configurations other switches in the network, and those configurations may require that both switches maintain connectivity throughout the full configuration of each of the switches. However, conventional network management systems operate to configure switches in a network deployment one-at-a-time by, for example, pushing a first configuration to a first switch (e.g., via Command Line Interface (CLI) commands, Secure Socket Shell (SSH) commands, etc.) for execution one configuration command at a time in order to configure the first switch, pushing a second configuration to a second switch for execution one configuration command at a time in order to configure the second switch, and so on until all of the switches in the network deployment have been configured. Such conventional network configuration can raise issues, particularly when configuration command sets operate to cause interface ports on one or more of the switches to shut down and/or otherwise lose communication capabilities with the network management system.
In a specific example, the network management system may be directly connected to a first switch via the management network, and indirectly coupled to a second switch via one of a plurality of links (a “management link”) between the first switch and the second switch. In many situations, the configuration of the first switch and the second switch may include placing the plurality of links between the first switch and the second switch into a Link Aggregation Group (LAG). However, using the conventional network configuration techniques discussed above, the network management system provides the first switch a first configuration that operates to configure the first switch ports on the first switch (which provide the corresponding plurality of links to the second switch) for the LAG. However, configuration commands for such a first configuration will cause those first switch ports on the first switch to “go down” (i.e., disable communication via those first switch ports due to the mismatch in port configurations with the second switch ports on the second switch) in order to form the LAG, and those first switch ports will then wait for the configuration of the second switch ports on the second switch (which provide the corresponding plurality of links to the first switch) for the LAG (i.e., that matches the LAG configuration of the first switch ports.) When the network management system then attempts to provide the second switch a second configuration (i.e., that would configure the second switch ports on the second switch to provide their corresponding links in the LAG), it will be unable to do so because the first switch port on the first switch that provides the management link (e.g., a link between trunk ports that provides for the management and communication of other data between the first and second switch) to the second switch is “down” and waiting for the configuration of the second switch port (i.e., with the matching port configuration for the LAG.) In such situations, on-site personnel must then go to the physical location of the second switch to apply the second configuration that provides the plurality of links between the first switch and the second switch in the LAG. These and other complications that arise from conventional, remote network configuration systems increase the time needed and costs associated with configuring networks, as well as prevent truly remote network configuration operations.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an improved network configuration system.